Jane Goodall on Why She's REDD-Faced: Copenhagen's Big Market-Based Plan to Keep Forests Alive (Video)

Though it's likely to be lost in the bombast and disappointment around a messy framework, there may be at least one tangible result from the Copenhagen summit: REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, is essentially a mechanism to pay developing countries to keep their trees standing, thereby maintaining habitats and preventing the release of carbon that happens through deforestation. The REDD text is mostly hashed out, and got a boost yesterday when the US announced it would pour $1 billion into a $3.5 billion fund called REDD+, which aims to protect and manage tropical forests until the system begins in full.

On Wednesday night at an event to celebrate REDD+, hosted by Maya Lin and featuring speeches by a handful of African presidents, the doyenne of forest protection herself Jane Goodall shared her thoughts with me on how REDD is shaping up and what she's hoping to see come out of Copenhagen.

On her way out the door after a long day, Dame Goodall said she hopes that REDD would draw more money by the end of the conference, expressed wonder at the big commitments flowing in, and explained that people increasingly appreciate that this kind of program is one of the best ways the world can prevent intentional forest fires (and other kinds of deforestation). 

Because, as the IPCC has estimated, tropical forest loss alone causes 20 percent of CO2 emissions worldwide, and deforestation generally accounts for 17.4 percent of all global GHG emissions -- more the whole global transport sector -- REDD is often cited as a "low hanging fruit" in climate policy. Every second of every day, the world loses a football field's worth of forests.

But while it's a no brainer, hammering out the details has been a long and complex process. 

System Could Leave Us REDD-Faced
One potential landmine is the prospect that preventing deforestation in some forests will only push it to others. Part of fighting that will mean reducing demand for natural forest timber in developed countries. Organized crime is even getting in on REDD corruption. There's also the question as to how REDD abets underwrite carbon spewing in developed countries, through carbon markets (it does, but it also protects forests, and is a short-term solution before lower-carbon economies come to life). And while there's a lot more money on the table now, negotiators involved say far more will be needed eventually, over $20 billion. 

Provided that an agreement is made on Friday in Copenhagen, REDD may be its biggest immediate result. If an agreement isn't made, it's unclear what the fate of REDD will be in the short term. But it's earned lots of healthy support, not least from Dame Jane.

Article by Alex Pasternack, Courtesy of TreeHugger.com

A Letter for Sanity: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Says "We Can Swim Or Sink Only Together" In Copenhagen

Nobel Laureate and hero from the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, known as "The Voice of the Voiceless" is one of the strongest moral voices on climate change in recent years.

As disorder reigns and frustration builds at the Copenhagen Climate summit, his voice, joined with that of the bold leadership from African countries, is something we should all heed. This letter went out to all Heads of State and many Christian Leaders.

Your Excellency,

I write urgently to you after meeting last night with the Chairperson of the G77 at his request. This is after the walkout from the UN Climate Talks which have deadlocked.

Ambassador Di-Aping showed me papers quoting from the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report which declared that Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and climate variability. In all four regions of Africa (West African, South African, East African, and Saharan), and in all seasons, the median temperature rise lies between 3 degrees C and 4 degrees C, roughly 1.5 times the global mean response.

Africa's major economic sectors are vulnerable to current climate sensitivity exacerbated by factors such as endemic poverty, complex governance challenges, limited access to capital, infrastructure and technology as well as ecosystem degradation and other disasters and conflict.

If temperatures are not kept down then Africa faces a range of devastating threats such as crop yield reductions, in places of as much as 50%, in some countries by 2020; Increased pressure on water supplies for 70 - 250 million people by 2020 and 350 - 600 million by 2050; The cost of adaptation to sea level rises of at least 5 - 10% of gross domestic product.

I think this is common cause. We are facing impending disaster on a monstrous scale. To keep temperature increase in Africa to below 1.5 degrees C requires a global goal of less than 1 degree C; keeping it below 2 degrees in Africa would require a global goal of less than 1.3 degrees C. that is the crux of the matter. A global goal of about 2 degrees C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development. And then of course there is the matter of funding mitigation and adaptation.

The Africans do not want to be spoilers. They know that we are in this together. We have but one earth home. If we do not reach a legally binding deal that takes account of all that has been outlined above then we are all doomed. We can swim or sink only together. The African group wants a deal, a fair ambitious and legally enforceable deal. If the issues that I have delineated above are not dealt with fairly and generously, attributes that have characterized most of the developed world, then it were better to have no deal than to have a bad deal.

This is a moral issue, it is a matter of justice for especially the weak and most vulnerable and the developed world is noted for seeking to do what is right and good.

I pray that my appeal to you will not fall on deaf ears.

God bless you,

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

Forward courtesy of Richard Graves – HuffingtonPost.com

2008 Overall Steel Recycling Rate Hits All-Time High

Record Tonnages Mean Record Levels of Production

PITTSBURGH, Pa. (Dec 11, 2009) - The Steel Recycling Institute (SRI) announced today that the overall steel recycling rate for the world’s, and America’s, most recycled material-steel-reached a record high of 83.3 percent. This means that more than 82 million tons of domestic steel scrap was charged into furnaces, both in the United States and abroad, to make new steel products to be used by the steel industry’s customers in meeting consumers’ needs.

It is important to note that the steel recycling rates are for 2008. Steel recycling rates are compiled based on data from scrap processors, steel producers, the US Geological Survey and the US Environmental Protection Agency, which can take up to a year to compile.

The first three quarters of 2008 marked high levels of production and scrap usage in the United States and that, along with a full-year of high levels of steel scrap exporting, contributed to these record numbers. These high levels of production drew upon record levels of steel scrap, as new steel simply is not made without steel scrap

“All new steel made in the North America contains a minimum of 28 percent steel scrap with some processes using upwards of 90 percent steel scrap to make new steel,” said Bill Heenan, president of the Steel Recycling Institute(SRI). “Steel continues to be recycled at a higher volume than paper, plastic, glass, copper and aluminum combined, and the steel can still holds the distinction of being food’s and beverage’s most recycled container.”

More than 1.5 million tons of steel containers were recycled in 2008 at a rate of 65.2 percent, while more than 14.8 million tons of steel was recycled from automobiles at a rate of 106 percent. Recycling rates for automobiles are often near or over 100 percent as older vehicles being recycled are often heavier than new cars which are more fuel efficient through use of advanced high-strength steels, which are now available to automobile manufacturers.

Appliance recycling rates remained stable at 90 percent as did structural steel at 97.5 percent, while construction reinforcement steel (i.e. rebar) increased slightly to 70 percent. These steel recycling rates accomplish much more than simply saving landfill space. For every ton of steel recycled, 2500 pounds of iron ore, 1400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone are conserved.

Recycling is also key to energy savings and other sustainable benefits. The United States steel industry has been the only major industry to reduce energy demands while still increasing production. In fact, the steel industry has reduced energy consumption by 33 percent since 1990 along with a 45 percent reduction in greenhouse gases per ton since 1975. For other sustainable advancements of the steel industry, visit this site.

The SRI, through its regional operations staff, continues to work with communities to increase the volume of steel being recycled and diverted from landfills. An increasing number of communities are expanding their traditional curbside programs to include light ferrous (iron) materials, such as toaster ovens, clothes hangers and irons. To find where steel can be recycled in your locality, visit this site.

About the Steel Recycling Institute

The Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), a unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute, is an industry association dedicated to communicating the sustainable efforts of the North American steel industry. The SRI educates the solid waste industry, government, business and ultimately the consumer about the benefits of steel’s recycling accomplishments and advancements in sustainability. For more information on the steel industry’s sustainable efforts visit this site or this site. Or follow the SRI on Twitter @EnviroMetal

Courtesy of Got2BGreen

How to Make a Hoop House, an Easy Home Garden Greenhouse

Worth the effort
Building a hoop house is a bit like having children: there's a lot of pleasure involved with the idea's conception, but very poor knowledge of the real work involved down the road. But just as it is difficult for me as a family man to imagine living without my children, I'd have a tough time living without my hoop house. It is a central part of my gardening life, not to mention a favorite hangout for my little boys. These instructions are meant to give you the inspiration and know-how to start a hoop house project of your own.

Weatherproof gardening
First, a few words of inspiration: tomatoes, melons and peppers. Need I say more? A hoop house provides the extra heat units you need to realize your wildest kitchen gardening fantasies. It allows you to have an earlier start, a later finish and lots of extra warmth in between. The first year I had mine up, I was so excited about all the possibilities that I gardened right through the year and was harvesting Mache and Claytonia salads in the dead of winter which is not bad seeing that I live in Maine (Northeast USA). As if that weren't enough, here's the showstopper: With a hoop house, you can garden in the rain and not get wet!

Getting started
Now the nuts and bolts. There are many plans available on the Internet for building a hoop house. The first one is the one I used for mine, adapting it from a 12' x 14' to a 12' x 16' in order to enjoy that extra row of whatever. Some of you will cringe with fear when you open up these plans and see that there's some basic carpentry involved. Fear not: I'm living proof that you don't have to be a handy person to build one, nor rich for that matter. What you do need is courage, patience and a bit of creativity to deal with the problems that will inevitably arise as you go along. There will be rips in your plastic, cracks in your joints and (in my part of the world) snowstorms that will try to make your hoop house into a large plastic pancake (they almost succeeded this winter!). Once again, do not worry for most of these problems can be resolved with some clever thinking on your part and several rolls of duct tape.

Advice for the novice
Three words to the wise: secure, support and ventilate. Once the plastic is on, your hoop house will catch the wind like an oversized kite. Make sure that the four corner posts are dug deep into the ground. Although the plans below don't call for it, I would also suggest adding some additional deeply dug support to the front and back walls. Similarly, if you live in the snowy north like I do, I would recommend that you envisage an internal support structure (2-3 beams supporting the spine will do) before the first snowstorm threatens. Once the snow has fallen, be sure to remove it quickly from the top of your structure to prevent stressing the joints. Finally, a hoop house is for growing plants not for baking bread. If you feel uncomfortably warm inside, then your plants probably do too. Make sure you open it up and allow the air to flow.

By Roger Doiron, Founder of Kitchen Garden International - Courtesy of TheDailyGreen.com http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/how-make-garden-greenhouse-47121701?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist

Copenhagen Forecast: Snow, Protest, Apocalypse; Can Obama Clear the Air?

The Final Stretch

Citizens around the world have called for a fair deal at climate talks, and in Copenhagen, they plan to make that call louder tomorrow with civil disobedience. The world's leading mayors have also called for a real deal, as have some of America's leading businesses. But where it counts, in the negotiating rooms, something is, sorry to say, still rotten in the state of Denmark.

No one said bringing all the world's countries together to hash out a deal -- or really, the foundations of a deal -- would be easy. But after nearly half a decade of facing the inconvenient truths of climate change, and its economic, political, and moral imperatives, does it have to be this hard?

Though we may not be fighting the apocalypse, as Greenpeace would have it, in Copenhagen we're staking the boldest claim yet for the future of the earth. We've messed it up -- we know that -- and we have the power to correct our mistake. So of course it has to be hard, because it has to be good.

Where We Are Now

To get things on track for the last day before heads of state take over, Denmark's Environment Minister, Connie Hedegaard, has formed five small groups to sort out the five "crunch issues" at the summit:

Improving the targets to be set by developed countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are causing climate change

* The mitigation actions of developing countries;*

* The long-term finance to be provided by rich nations so that poor countries can cope with climate change effects;

* How to deal with emissions caused by the aviation and shipping industries; and

* Special circumstances of some countries (such as Russia) in relation to mitigation.

The Divisions

The end times may not be upon us, but the developed and developing countries certainly look more divided than before. The African nations, which suspended talks on Monday, want a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a regime the US and most other developed countries reject outright.

Rich countries are also reluctant to dole out the long-term aid poor nations need to survive and fight climate change. The US is especially adamant that it won't give China any money -- or reparations, as the US negotiator idiotically called them -- because China doesn't need the US's money. China's negotiator seemed to agree with that at first, but then Beijing backtracked, saying China deserves money too.

What China says it doesn't deserve is to have its emissions cuts overseen by any carbon police, a demand the US insists is an absolute must for any climate deal. Meanwhile, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) says that an upper limit of two degrees Celsius of warming isn't good enough as it would result in a loss of coastlines and sometime entire islands; they want a 1.5-degree cap, but not all developing nations do. And now, thanks to a backroom deal between France and Ethiopia, even the African nations are showing rifts.

The Agreements (Sort Of)

There have been some promising steps forward, apart from the promises made just before the summit by China, India, Brazil and others. Yesterday a number of potential financing options were put on the table. Today Holland committed to the 40 percent cuts called for by Kyoto.

Meanwhile, the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme, known as REDD, got a dollar amount affixed to it today: $22 billion to $37 billion to jump start the plan, which would seek to halt deforestation in developing nations completely by 2030. (Currently, the only money being offered for a climate deal is a meager $30 billion in so-called "kick-start" financing over three years; some groups also call it "kick-end" financing because it doesn't go beyond that date).

But ultimately, these steps forward are signs of good will and good faith, not agreements that are likely to make it into a final agreement.

Endgame - Or New Game?

With expectations as low as ever, and anger and concern rising, Barack Obama may be well positioned to attempt a modest Hail Mary pass when he flies in on Thursday. The timing of the White House's report today about green jobs seems fortuitous; what better way to prime the American public for a ramping up of the US's carbon cutting commitments? But chances are, his throw won't be strong enough, and if it is, he may not have any teammates to catch it.

At the summit where world leaders were supposed to ink a binding deal on climate change, environmental groups, activists and journalists are already preparing for a greenwash, and getting ready to pack their bags for the next possible climate agreement end zone in Mexico.

Before they get there though, they may need to help remake the game completely.

Article by Alex Pasternack Courtesy of Treehugger.com http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/copenhagen-forecast-snow-protest-apocalypse-can-obama-clear-the-air.php